


The Book and Two Minutes After

by Derien



Category: Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-20
Updated: 2005-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:43:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derien/pseuds/Derien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike finds a book Psmith had been reading that implies something about Psmith which he hadn't guessed at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book and Two Minutes After

**Author's Note:**

> Set just after the end of "Mike." They have the bulk of their last year at Sedleigh to go through before going on to college, making them about seventeen. (Originally posted on my site as The Book, The Book II, The Book III and Two Minutes After.)

* * *

Psmith had got himself laid up in Infirmary, likely for the night, having turned his ankle badly by stepping into a rabbit hole, so Mike was alone in their study desultorily attempting some translation. It didn't go near as easily without his friend there to make a game of giving him clues - Psmith was much better at Greek, to the point he could read Greek texts for pleasure, or so he let on. Sometimes Mike had to wonder if the other just held a book up in front of his face to shut people out when he wanted time to think. He seemed endlessly pleased by that one little red book with the gold designs. If he truly read Greek for pleasure he must have read that one a hundred times. It must be much more fascinating than the usual texts they were set to translate by their forms masters. Mike reasoned that it might make him much better at Greek if he had something to translate which was at least a bit interesting. He had seen Psmith tuck the book into the small locking cabinet beneath the bookshelf several times. Psmith had always kept the key to that cabinet in his waistcoat pocket, but now the cabinet door had been broken by Mr. Downing and, though shut, was not secure. Mike opened the door and peeked in. There wasn't much in there, really - a few odds and ends. For a moment he thought the book was gone, but then he pushed aside a scarf (what was that doing there?) on a whim and caught a glimmer of the gold design on it's spine. It struck him as odd that a book which Psmith often read should have found it's way to the very back and under something else when there was really so very little in the cabinet. He pulled it out and sat down at his desk to see if there was something in Greek worth reading.

Half an hour later his face was burning red, and he got up and locked the door to the study. He sat back down in his chair rather shakily and stared at the book on the table as if it were a viper. This was what Psmith had been reading the other day in his lawn chair while Mike had sat next to him reading a letter from his sister? No wonder he casually tucked it into his jacket pocket when a master approached. Mike supposed it certainly WAS more interesting than the usual texts they were set to translate. Which texts, he realized now, had been changed, made suitable for schoolboys, because some of this sounded quite familiar while other bits... Well, everyone knew what everyone said about the Greeks, but he hadn't really thought of it as something like this. He picked the book up again, gingerly, and flipped the pages, noticing which were most worn and where the book wanted to fall open. He chose a page which it fell open to as his next attempt at translation. There were plenty of words he didn't recognize, but enough that he did. Yes, both of the characters on this page were in the masculine. And, as he had suspected, it turned out to be a rather racey passage.

When the bell rang for lockup he was startled, though he had lit a candle some time before. He hurriedly shoved the book back into it's place at the back of the cabinet behind the scarf and hoofed it to his dormitory, where he proceeded to lie awake for quite some time, thinking.

* * *

The next morning Psmith turned up at breakfast, hobbling around with a crutch and splint and decked out in a pair of ridiculously large, light blue, pyjama bottoms with wide legs. Back at their dormitory he waved off the solicitous queries of their roommate, Jellicoe, with an airy hand, sending him off to forms with a blithe comment that it was really nothing and he would be back to bowling in no time, and made himself comfortable on his bed while Mike fetched him a fresh shirt. Mike, of course, put aside without a second thought any worries about being late to class. It was obvious that Psmith wasn't going to be able to carry his own books, and if that wasn't a good enough excuse to be late he couldn't imagine what would be. The theme this morning to Psmith's usual running monologue was his observations on infirmary and Matron, but Mike increasingly lost the thread, as, with Psmith now here in his presence again, he found his thoughts unerringly drawn to the book which he had found the night before. He wanted to know more, he wanted to ask questions, but he had no idea what sort of questions, and he was all too aware that he had intruded on something private, that he already had more information than he should. He wished he'd had the sense to mind his own business, perhaps taking a clue from the fact that the book had been hidden - that seemed so obvious in retrospect, but he hadn't even realized at the time that it had been purposely hidden. He had assumed it was an accident that the book had been shoved to the back of the cabinet and the scarf tossed in front of it. Meanwhile Psmith removed jacket, waistcoat and shirt. Mike tore his gaze away from the hand working at the buttons and interrupted to ask which books Psmith needed for the day.

"The workbook third from left and - Oh, dash it! - the maths, which I left in our study."

Accordingly, they stopped at the study on their way. As Mike turned the knob, Psmith noted that it wasn't locked.

"Well, I couldn't lock it, could I? You had the key in your pocket."

"So I did!"

"I'm sure everything's fine. I was here all the evening and everything looks just as it did when I left."

Psmith lowered himself into a chair. "I don't suppose you'd be up to fetching me a sip of water? I'm parched."

"We're going to be awfully late to first form," Mike observed, but went directly.

On his return Psmith took a little water, but set the cup down before it was half empty, and observed that it seemed someone might have been into the cabinet.

"That may have been me," Mike volunteered. He didn't want to lie, and he didn't want Psmith to worry about any of the other boys having seen his book.

"You burrowed around in the cabinet? Why?"

Mike shrugged. "I was a bit bored with you gone."

"And did you find anything to interest you?"

"Only your moldy old book. But you know I don't read Greek nearly as well as you do." He prayed Psmith would let it lie at that and accept the misdirection; he never liked to lie to save himself, but this was a matter of leaving Psmith a graceful way to keep his privacy. "I wish I did," he added, and then wondered why he had added those words.

Psmith regarded him for a moment with half-lidded eyes, then gave a small nod. "You will improve with practice, if you will only apply yourself. Of course some people have more of a gift for languages - it comes with the gift of gab, I suppose, for I have always found talking to be my greatest strength. You, on the other hand, are more a man of action. it's why we compliment each other. I talk, you listen; I think, you do."

"Makes me sound a bit like your servant."

"Not at all! You are true and noble, as the knights of old. Pure of heart and sound of limb."

"Rot. At any rate, we've missed half of first form by now and we'll catch it; we'd better hobble on."

"You cut to the quick of the matter, as always. Proving my point!"

He levered himself to his feet, wincing a little.

"Does it hurt you much?" Mike asked.

"Not terribly. More painful is being seen about in these frightful trousers. I shall never live them down."

* * *

Over the next several days Mike automatically took the role of fetching and carrying for Psmith while his ankle was in the splint. It was not a great increase in his duties from what Psmith normally managed to exact from the always amiable and helpful Mike, but, with the turmoil which had been excited in Mike's mind by the discovery of the book, he noticed each request just a bit more than he had before. He noticed the exact inflection to Psmith's voice when he said, "Comrade Jackson, would you be so kind as to fix some tea?" Gentlemanly to everyone, he was somehow an extra ounce warmer to Mike. Even more, Mike noticed the warm rush through his body when he brushed against Psmith or even stood too near, disconcerting but not unpleasant. This dreary, rainy afternoon as he presented Psmith his cup of tea Mike contrived, as he had been wont to do more and more often, lately, to brush their hands together. He thought, as he did so, it must be clumsy and obvious, but Psmith seemed to give it barely any notice, beyond a flicker of an eye and a possible slight hitch in his running monologue.

Psmith was not in his best humor since spraining his ankle, although, as he controlled or hid his frustrations as smoothly as he did all stronger emotions with his light manner, it may not have been noticeable to anyone else. Mike guessed that it galled him to have his customary grace stolen from him, though he remained more graceful on crutches than many an whole and able-bodied person.

Now Psmith and Mike settled with their tea to their various studies, and for a while little was to be heard beyond the arrhythmic drip of the rain off the eaves, but shortly Psmith sighed and stretched his leg out, rubbing the calf.

"Could you be so kind, Comrade Jackson, as to fetch that chair over?"

He propped himself sideways at his desk, leg supported by the extra chair, and went back to work on his maths. Mike sat back down at his own desk and stared at the Greek, which tormented him, and then out the window at the dismal greyness.

Mike had known from the moment of their first conversation that Psmith was like no-one he had ever met before, yet that had only been a few months ago. A few months can seem close to a lifetime at the age Mike was, but the several years which Mike had spent before that without any particularly close friend seemed like nearly an eternity in comparison. Mike was the sort of person, who, although he always knew a lot of people, did not form close friendships easily. He had quickly developed a strong affection for his dormmate at Wrykyn; Wright had been several years older, and then had managed to get himself expelled before long, so that Mike hadn't had the opportunity to get to know him as well as he would have hoped. Mike had prevailed upon his father to secure Wright a place at the sheep ranch in Buenos Aires which Mr. Jackson owned a part interest in, and had received a letter from Wright which assured Mike that he was certainly much happier with that position than he had been with the banking job which his stepfather had put him into, which gladdened Mike's heart. However, writing letters was not Mike's strong suit. He had set his pen to paper on several occasions, but would crumple each false start in frustration feeling a frightful kid when all he could find to write about was cricket and classes. Soon he gave it up as a lost cause, and, although he still thought of Wright nearly every day and wished him well, he realized that he would probably never see him again. The loss of Wright had been a wrench to him, and he didn't become that strongly attached to any other boy in his next two years at Wrykyn.

And then had come Psmith, giving the impression that he was used to the courting of hundreds yet choosing out Mike as his special confidant. Mike had grown somewhat used to being a little lonely, and was disinclined to open himself up to another loss, but Psmith had attached to him as a constant companion, and proved his loyalty with his willingness to take the blame for the painted dog, when it had seemed Mike could not avoid being sent down from school for the offense. It was something much more than gratitude that Mike felt for Psmith after that occasion. He felt that it had given him the opportunity to view something in Psmith which wasn't normally on public display; a depth of loyalty which would be given only to certain people, the bestowing of which marked Mike out as special to Psmith.

Coming after all that, to now have this little bit of extra knowledge about Psmith concerning the mysterious but hitherto overlooked book, it was enough to make anyone wonder. Mike, not comfortable with words, knew he was not up to making a verbal foray in an attempt to learn more about this hidden side of Psmith, but he was watching and observing and turning it all over in his mind during these past few days, and it seemed to him there might be a better way than asking straightforward questions. Certainly they could both use a distraction today - he had barely touched his translation, and Psmith had opened his sketchbook next to his maths.

Psmith took the sketchbook along when he sat on the sidelines of the cricket games Mike played for the village, doing sketches of the players. Mike had seen a few, and they were fairly decent. He had always known that he featured rather more highly in these sketches than anyone else on the team, but that was only to be expected given that they were schoolmates and friends, while the other members of the team were all from the village and mostly unknown to either of them outside of the cricket field. Now he stood and moved over to Psmith's desk, and Psmith flipped the maths page over the sketchbook quite casually.

"I wanted to see what you were drawing."

Psmith looked up with a gently arching brow. "Drawing?"

"Don't say you weren't. I'm sure you weren't doing maths." He flipped the paper aside, and Psmith did not stop him, but met his eyes steadily when he looked up from the drawing of his own face, probably done while he was daydreaming only minutes before. His throat felt close and his tongue was thick, and his voice came out much gruffer than he intended.

"Wish I'd known I had such an idiot expression."

"Far from it. Your face was full of fine feeling. I was unable to capture it."

"Rot."

"Delighted as I always am to have your invaluable criticism, I cannot help but wonder if there were some reason why you interrupted my studies?"

"I was going to ask if you could help me with my Greek."

"Any time, my dear Comrade. What passage was giving you difficulty?"

"I'm bored to death of it all. Listen, perhaps you could read to me from that book you find so interesting? Maybe some interesting Greek would be easier for me to understand." Although his mouth was dry Mike swallowed hard. "If I could hear you speak it, and see the words... I could sit on the desk, here, and look over your shoulder."

Psmith gave him a speculative look, and a slight, gentle smile. "Returning to the first precepts of reading. A most sound idea, Comrade Jackson. Very well, then - seat yourself on the desk above my shoulder and we shall have story time, as though we were in the nursery."

He pulled the book from the pocket of his jacket as Mike followed his command, and, opening it, asked, "Shall we have the legend of Ganymede and Zeus, first, or that of Damon and Pythias?"

"Er, Damon and Pythias?" Mike leaned over on one arm so that he could see over Psmith's shoulder to the book.

"Very well." Psmith began reading, his voice at first strong and sure, moving quickly over the sounds which clattered around Mike's head like so many small rocks. As he began to get into the rhythm of the story he slowed down a little, making it more comprehensible. Then his voice began to soften, his volume dropped a bit at a time, until Mike found himself leaning further in, trying to hear a little better, understand a little more. He was understanding perhaps seven of ten words, but he realized that the story was getting interesting. He also realized he could feel the heat of Psmith's back against his chest, and he wondered if perhaps this moment wasn't a kind of perfect place - a balance point where something might be about to happen. If he moved in any direction he might spoil it, never to be regained.

"Comrade Jackson?"

"Hm?"

"Do you realize you are breathing down my neck?"

"Oh. Ah?"

He hadn't realized anything of the kind. He had realized nothing else. He hadn't realized when Psmith had lapsed into silence, concentrating, as he had been, on breathing in the warm smell of the back of his neck.

It didn't matter now, though - the moment was broken and he was feeling like a fool.

"Look, ah, I was wondering if you'd have any objection..." Mike began. He felt hazy and off-balance; nothing mattered, he'd already made a fool of himself, he might as well press ahead.

Psmith turned his head, and his face was very close. He only managed to ask, "To...?" before Mike's mouth was on his, tentatively, pausing only for a moment with a quick and awkward press of lips and then moving back. "No...?" said Psmith.

Mike stared into his eyes, then found himself flushing.

"Sorry, I thought... I just thought maybe you'd like..."

"No, I would have no objection," said Psmith, reaching up to pull Mike's head close again.

He moved more surely and firmly, as hungry and eager as Mike felt and had been unable to express, nibbling and probing and pushing with his tongue. But this was a method of expression which Mike could learn. He was at a loss with words, they were not what his lips and tongue had been made for - no, they had been made for this, he now felt sure, moving together in a delicious kind of battle. Every particle of himself concentrating on the pressure and movement of lips and tongues and Psmithness filling his mouth, Mike wondered how he could have thought that anything else would be the perfect moment.

* * *

Psmith could somehow keep talking no matter what else his tongue was doing; a comforting buzz in Mike's ear that served to distract him from the strangeness of the situation and concentrate on the pleasant aspects of what else that tongue was doing. They had locked their study door so that Psmith could give him some special instruction in understanding Greek – because surely it would help in understanding the language if he understood more about the people who spoke it. Classical Greek, Mike decided, was an inspiring tongue; at least the way Psmith spoke it on his body.

Now Psmith was easing off his trousers and pants and adding them on the pile of clothing nearby, running his long, clever fingers across Mike's belly, trailing them up the inside of his thigh, and finally, finally, grasping his cock, which was lying stiff against Mike's lower belly. Mike heard his breath – no; that was not Psmith's harsh breath letting out, it was Mike's own. He hadn't been aware of holding it. He sucked another breath in, his throat close, his mouth dry, watching, mesmerized, as Psmith's fingers wrapped tightly around and allowed only half of the purpley engorged head to peak out. His tongue flicked out, swirling across the head, velvety and warm. Some sort of noise came out of Mike's throat – a squeak or a whimper – and Psmith looked up into his eyes, mischievous.

"What a delicious plum."

A smile tugged at the corners of Mike's mouth – it did indeed resemble a plum, but he didn't want distraction at the moment.

"Now that I know that your mouth is good for something else, see if I let you talk anymore," he said, just touching the back of Psmith's head, encouragingly, which Psmith accepted whole-heartedly.

* * *

Endnote: I'd always wondered why Wodehouse's nickname was Plum. Eor suggested it might have been given to him by his boyfriend.

**Author's Note:**

> I am evil and bad because I'm writing about something I have absolutely no firsthand knowledge of - Greek texts. Does anyone have A) any idea what text he might be reading? and B) any crits at all regarding this little short?


End file.
